No Permanent Record
Dec 6 2022
were heavy
made of wood
and arranged in inflexible rows.
Unpadded
straight-backed
with a book-box built in.
The seat and table
were inseparable,
so after slipping in from the side
you felt confined
in the one-size-fits-all
configuration.
The varnish was yellowing.
There was a small hole
where an inkwell used to go,
from before fountain pens
and cheap disposable Bics.
Previous generations
had carved into the soft aging wood,
initials
idle doodles
and the odd defiant profanity.
Small but meaningful acts
of boredom,
resistance,
individuality.
Your sat in the same place
all year.
The keeners
in the exposed front row
the rest of us avoided.
The average achievers
lumped somewhere in the middle.
And the cool kids
sitting all the way back
whispering among themselves.
Where they kibitzed
launched spit-balls
and cheated on tests.
They were the firebrands
and junior Bolsheviks
of the grade 6 class,
planning small insurgencies
conspiring in code.
Who are now mostly in prison
or C.E.Os.
And, back then, the dumb kids,
whom the system left behind
and were rarely called upon.
Outcasts,
whom we laughed at
ignored
felt sorry for;
who knows
where they ended up.
Perhaps dropped out and enlisted
and were killed in Vietnam.
Heavy wooden desks
in rigid rows and ranks,
as immovable
as if they'd been bolted down.
Military precision;
just as we were expected
to sit quietly,
be compliant,
speak when spoken to.
Were expected
to know our place.
The front row kids
who became computer scientists.
Who had all the answers
and kept their hands up
eager to be called.
You can see why we resented them.
The diligent middle
with ink-stained fingers
bent over their desks.
Who worked hard for middling averages
and are now middle managers.
But who
— despite good attendance
and no permanent record —
were mostly forgettable.
And then the mischievous others,
who kept things interesting
and made sure to have fun.
These were the culprits
behind the small acts of rebellion,
thumbing their noses at authority
obscurity
oblivion.
Who still live on
in their initials in the wood
gum stuck under the desks.
Carved-in
so there's no scrubbing off.
And great wads
that have turned turn rock hard
and are forever welded-on.
Their permanent record
for as long as anyone bothers to look.
We took the threat seriously: ”it will go on your permanent record”, as if some mimeographed (look it up!) middle school detention sheet will dog us all our lives!
Although the poem is about permanence: not only the futile gesture of carving initials into a desk, but the quest for individuality over conformity. Because nothing renders one more impermanent than the sameness of anonymity. Especially in a school system that has its origin in Prussia, and was designed along military lines and intended to mould us into model industrial workers. Where even the design of this desk — immovable and indivisible — says “know your place, and stay in it.”
This is the second theme of the poem: the idea of stratification and class, pigeon-holing, and path dependency. The smart kids, who get encouraged and tend to live up to expectations. And the late bloomers, neurodivergent, or slow; who get labelled as dumb, and then can only see themselves that way.
I was one of the smart kids (although, in my defence, a bit of the class clown as well!) But I envied and admired the mischievous back row kids. They had character and imagination. They always seemed a little more grown-up. They didn't care as much, and that made them freer.
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